CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reacted on air to Friday’s Senate vote against calling additional witnesses by declaring that President Donald Trump “won.”
The motion to compel witness testimony in the Senate impeachment trial failed 51-49 on Friday, with only two Republicans, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Utan Sen. Mitt Romney, siding with Democrats who had particularly hoped to hear from former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
“Trump won,” said Toobin. “He’s going to win this trial. He won on the issue of witnesses. He’s going to get acquitted, and that’s how history will remember what went on here.”
“I think history will also record that there are at least one, and perhaps other, pivotal, pivotal witnesses who were available to the House of Representatives, to the Senate to talk about the precise issue that is the subject of this impeachment trial, and the Senate decided not to hear from them,” Toobin lamented. “The idea that John Bolton is out there with a book and giving speeches for money and said he’s willing, and having someone leaking the contents of that book daily to the New York Times, and the Senate decided not to hear from John Bolton is just an absolute travesty.” (RELATED: Democratic Senator Claims To Chris Cuomo That Republicans ‘Don’t Want’ Hunter, Joe Biden As Witnesses)
Fellow panelist and former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum responded to Toobin’s comments by noting that the senators who voted against witnesses “believe that the House case as presented in the articles of impeachment is not sufficient on its face to vote to remove a president.”